TIR Handbook - Mini-Biographies: 03-04

Teacher in Residence – Handbook

Mini-Biographies for the TIR's,
Their stories in their own words!

2002-03 TIR's

Jim Bogan

I graduated from a small (24 class members) high school in Indiana and went to Purdue University. What a shock to this small-town Hoosier when went from being the class president to one of over 600 incoming freshmen!. I graduated with a B.S. in mathematics and a physics minor. Still at Purdue, I earned an M.A.T. in Mathematics Education, under N.S.F. funding (Thank God and the government for those opportunities!!!).

I went back the next summer to Purdue for some more physics and attended other summer institutes at San Diego State in Astronomy Education and Project Physics. I took various courses in Indiana colleges in physics and science education at the elementary and middle school levels and never wanted to stop learning. I had over 60 semester hours in physics and science education since my graduate degree. In 1986 I was chosen as a PTRA and worked, until my medical retirement in 1995, with teachers from Indiana and other states sharing instructional and demonstration techniques.

I heard of an opening for a position called a TIR at Ball State and applied. George Hill and I team-taught as co-TIRs from Jan 2001 till sometime in 2003! We developed lab experiments for the algebra-based physics courses at BSU. This past semester (Fall 2005) I have been teaching physics and physical science at the Muncie campus of Ivy Tech Community College of Indiana (I think that is the name it has now...we call it IvyTech.)

I have three grown children and 5 grandchildren. My wife, Christine, a Yooper, and I live with our dog. Those of you in MI know what a Yooper is. Others should look it up! Shadow, near Muncie is where we can enjoy the lake, fresh air (there's a hog farm just down the road) and sunshine. Christine is the English Department chair at the Indiana Academy, the state school for gifted and talented high school juniors and seniors from across Indiana. We met while I was a Fellow at the Academy for the 1992-93 school year. My retirement fun includes researching my family's history, tying fishing flies and using them to entertain the local smallmouth bass and other pan-fish. After Christine's retirement we hope to move to Michigan and enjoy that beautiful state and travel as much as time and money allow!

David Byrum

The academic year 2003-04 was my 32nd year of teaching. The majority of these years I taught Chemistry and Physics, but I’ve also taught General Math, Introduction to Physical Science (IPS), Earth Science, 2nd year Chemistry, and Intro. to BASIC Computer Programming. I taught for a city (Tucson) Catholic H.S., a rural (Globe) public H.S. and a city (Tucson) public H.S., all in Arizona. I was science department chair for two of these schools, coached cross country & track for one, and was a track coach for another. I’ve been a high school track & field official for 25 yrs. and a college official for 8 years. My undergraduate degree is from Arizona State University, a BAEd in Chemsitry and my graduate degree is from the University of Arizona, a MaED in Secondary Education. This allows me to cheer on both schools in any sport or academic endeavor!

For most of my teaching career (27 yrs.) I’ve also taught CHM 130 - Fundamentals of Chemistry for the allied health fields for the local community college and for the last 6 yrs. I taught a dual-enrollment General College Chemistry course in the morning at the high school. Students earned both high school and college credit, at no cost to themselves!

I’ve been very fortunate to have had the opportunity to teach for two of the three major state universities in Arizona! For four summers I was a Co-Associate Investigator and Co-Instructor for the National Science Foundation grant creating the "Southwest Regional Program for Excellence in Precollege Chemical Education" at Northern Arizona University, and for a total of 9 yrs., prior to being the PhysTEC TIR, I taught at the University of Arizona for the Chemistry Department, CHM 244a & CHM 244b “Honors Organic Chemistry Laboratory”, and CHM 433/533 “Chemistry Demonstrations”, and for the College of Education, TTE 338-H, "Teaching Secondary School Science". These have all been a great experiences for which I am very grateful to have had the opportunity to work in these departments.

During my teaching career, I’ve had the good fortune to have worked with many supportive and creative colleagues and many, many neat students. As a result, I received the Presidential Award for Excellence in Teaching Science (1988), had the chemistry program that I created selected as a National Exemplar in Chemistry by the NSTA-CSSS-NSSA Search for Excellence in Science Education, as well as being selected by the Arizona School Board Association for their Golden Bell Award, and received a GTE Gift program award. The best award has been the five times that I’ve been nominated by former students for inclusion in the Who's Who in Education publication.

For the past seven years I have been the feature editor for the “View from my Classroom” feature in the Journal of Chemical Education and for four years was also for the feature editor of the column “Apparatus Review” in the JCE. This past year I was the President of the Arizona Science Teachers Association and I am now serving as the Past-president of ASTA.

I have a son who lives in the San Francisco area and is both a tennis pro and an accountant. He has been ranked nationally on the 30 and older tennis circuit and is fun to go and watch play. My wife has been a teacher for 29 yrs and is currently a math teacher at a high school here in Tucson. We enjoy traveling and have had some fantastic trips in the past four years, and we hope to have many more!

Teaching has been a great career for me, and with the opportunity that being PhysTEC Teacher in Residence, as well as being part of the College of Sciences Teacher Preparation Program, has afforded me to continue in the field by helping to prepare the next generation of science teachers has made the decision to be a teacher even better!

Dale Freeland

Dale Freeland grew up on a Michigan fruit and dairy farm. He attended a one-room, K-6 school that had an average of 17 students. After graduation from Kent City High School, he attended Western Michigan University and graduated with majors in physics and mathematics. His first high school assignment in 1973 involved teaching physics and physical science in a rural setting of Paw Paw, Michigan. In 1993 he took a teaching position at Portage Central High School where he currently teaches physics, International Baccalaureate Physics, and Computer Electronics.

Dale participated in four NSF projects and each has been influential on his teaching and workshop presentations: Physics Teaching Resource Agent (PTRA) program in 1987, Operation Physics (OP) in 1988, Constructing Physics Understanding in a computer supported environment (CPU) in 1995, and in PhysTEC, as Western Michigan University's Teacher-in-Residence for 2002-03. Each of these projects led to more professional growth and involvement. Dale served as an officer in the Michigan Section of AAPT and was on the Michigan State Science Teachers Association board for several years.

He has continued his involvement in the PhysTEC project after returning to his high school teaching position by mentoring beginning physics and physical science teachers. He encourages all of them to become actively professionally, to learn, to share, and later to present and to encourage other teachers through professional involvement. Dale says that he has undergone continuous growth through interaction with many educators in professional interactions. He credits Dr. Robert Poel for encouraging him as an undergrad to get started with professional involvement through conference attendance. Dale has been an adjunct professor at Western Michigan University since 1989 and regularly attends and presents at science teacher and physics teacher conferences. Most recently he delivered an invited talk describing his mentoring activities at the AAPT 2006.

George Hill

I received both a BS and an MA from Ball State University with about equal hours in Physics, Chemistry, and Mathematics. I first taught in a very small school, Spiceland High School, in Indiana where I taught 8th grade physical science, advanced algebra, trigonometry, analytical geometry, chemistry, and physics. After four years, (1960-64) I moved to Marion, Indiana where I taught physics every year for 39 years along with physical science, a few sections of chemistry (when physics was down and chemistry was up), and in more recent years AP physics.

After my retirement from high school teaching, I taught a class of Physical Science at Indiana Wesleyan University and a class at IVY Tech Community College both here in Marion. Jim Bogan and I shared the TIR position as Ball State first got involved, in the spring semester 2002 and continuing through the 2002-3 school year. We were both retired high school teachers so were a bit outside the parameters of the PhysTEC TIR, however at the time it did seem reasonable.

Our original assignments were to: (1) develop labs that would incorporate recent technology with concepts appropriate for the algebra-based physics course and working to make them more inquiry based. (2) work with prospective physics teachers and to be available to mentor them. (3) promote teaching of physics as a viable career. I participated in the PhysTEC conferences at Western Michigan and the University of Arizona. Presently, I am teaching a class of algebra-based physics at Ivy Tech Community College.

David Johnson

Ellen Momsen

I began my teaching career in the Los Angeles Unified School District planning on teaching Biology/Physiology. Because there was a shortage of Physical Science teachers, I was assigned several periods of Physical Science. Since I really enjoyed those classes, I enrolled in University physics courses, and became credentialed in Physics. While in LA, I was science department chair, and a mentor teacher for novice science/math instructors.

After a wonderful year in Northern Ireland on the Fulbright Teacher Exchange Program (I definitely recommend this program to everyone!), I moved to the beautiful southern Oregon Coast, where I taught Physics/Physical Science, Health, and Math in a small rural school district. I came to Corvallis, Oregon in the first year of the PhysTEC program in 2002. It was a fantastic experience to work with the Department of Science and Math Education and in the Department of Physics, and really changed the course of my career! A targeted course in the OSU PhysTEC program was Calculus-based Physics, a large lecture class required of physics majors and engineering students. I worked with faculty on lab revisions, but was shocked at the gender makeup of the class: less than 13% women.

I became very interested in adding gender issues into the TA training, and when the College of Engineering decided to initiate a Women and Minorities in Engineering Program, I was hired. It has been challenging to start a new recruitment and retention program. One of my first initiatives was to develop a College of Engineering Ambassador Program. Female and Minority engineering students visit K12 schools and lead engineering activities that highlight the importance of engineering in improving lives. An interesting side note is that out of the twelve Ambassadors of that first year, two are now enrolled in the OSU teacher credential program and several more are interested in exploring teaching opportunities in the future! Engineering can be great training for future physics teachers.

Marc Reif

I was born and mostly raised in Fayetteville, Arkansas by two artists from New York City. Throughout most of my childhood I thought I would be an archeologist or a biologist. I took degrees in anthropology (BA, University of Arkansas 1986) and teaching biology (MAT, University of North Carolina, 1989). I then worked as a middle school teacher in North Carolina and Central America for four and a half years. That was just long enough to thoroughly convince me that teaching middle school wasn't the career for me. After "quitting teaching" (I worked as a museum educator) for three years, I took a job teaching physics at the high school I attended, thinking it might lead to a biology position. Almost nine years later I've never taught biology but I'm still teaching physics. This is in no small part due to Dr. Gay Stewart of the University of Arkansas, who took me under her wing in my first, overwhelming year of teaching physics. It's also due to the beauty of the subject and to the opportunities it affords to interact with people (mostly students) on an intellectual level.

As a teacher, I am a modeler who loves technology and (almost) never teaches a topic the same way twice. I am a College Board AP Physics Consultant and I recently earned National Board Certification in Physics. My students complain that I answer every question with a question, but I consider it high praise.

I now live and work in Rhode Island with my wife Eden, and two daughters: Zoe (five) and Ana (three). I am proud of my association with PhysTEC and consider my year as University of Arkansas TIR ('02) as the high point of my teaching career (outside of the classroom). I enjoy the opportunities to make contributions to my profession, and most importantly to physics students.